Jon
Parallax needs to 'get over it' or 'close the door firmly on the past' regarding PIC's.
LOL. You need to get over it. Parallax has no interest in PICs. They build their own processor, hence there is no good reason for them to invest money in creating tools that don't support the hardware they sell, especially when many of us are asking for more features in the tools that support the Propeller.
They need to 'put the Stamp on steroids' also.
They did that -- it's called the Propeller. If you actually understood how the BASIC Stamp works, you can see the linage through to the Propeller. And as others have mentioned, they have breadboard friendly version called the FLiP. I'm on the road for two weeks, and have with me a "FLiP Kit" (along with several PABs and assorted parts) so that I can do my job. And play in the evenings. At the moment I am experimenting with BLE and the Propeller using an HM-10 module.
I would suggest statements like this show youR keen business sense. </sarc>
And wants to work on project for free.
This isn't how Parallax operates. They pay their employees and contractors.
These lessons are not going to be too helpful. There's no such thing as "Assembly Language" that doesn't reference a specific instruction set, so there's assembly language for the Propeller, assembly language for specific PIC models, assembly language for the Z80, assembly language for the Intel 8086, etc. ... all different. There have been attempts at defining a "universal assembly language", but these have been the subject of conference papers and graduate theses and not much more. One of the unfinished lessons on the master website is probably for the Z80 as far as I can tell, very confusing if you have an early model PIC
There are a number of Arduino kits with parts and manuals that may be of interest to you but you can also find websites using the Arduino all over the internet.
The Arduino uses an ATMEL 8-bit AVR microcontroller which internally is quite different that the 32-bit Propeller but both have C compilers.
The Arduino libraries are different than the SimpleIDE libraries but both have webpages that fully document them.
I don't know what your background is or what programming languages you have or have not learned, but Propeller C may be a good place to start or play with an Arduino and then you can easily move to Propeller C.
Look at the instruction set for the Propeller (or any CISC processor) and compare it to the number of keywords in C (for, while, case, etc.)
The purpose of a compiler/interpreter is to try to generate the appropriate machine instructions for a given statement. Depending on the statement, one line of C code could result in 10 or more machine instructions).
Do you want to, in effect, work with 10x more code?
The compiler takes care of memory assignments, temporary variables and pointers, and can (usually) point out issues in your code such as assigning a 32-bit value to an 8-bit value without casting it.
The assembler can't (at least I haven't worked with one that could).
Processor status flags (result zero, result carry, etc.) are a major stumbling point for learning assembly language.
My advice is that, unless you need speed, stick with a variation of Basic.
If you really need speed, then use a Propeller.
I don't use the Stamps. But on the Propeller I use Spin whenever possible, and PASM (Assembly) when needed for speed.
Parallax needs to invest its limited funds where it will do the most good.
If you want to experiment with the Propeller, you could use FemtoBasic from the Propeller Object Exchange (OBEX). This is an integer Basic interpreter, much like PBasic, that runs entirely on the Propeller. There are versions that use the serial PC connection used for downloading programs (DongleBasic) and versions that use a PS/2 keyboard and either an NTSC or VGA display (FemtoBasic).
You could write a simple blink LED program with it that looks almost the same as a BS1 PBasic program:
Comments
They did that -- it's called the Propeller. If you actually understood how the BASIC Stamp works, you can see the linage through to the Propeller. And as others have mentioned, they have breadboard friendly version called the FLiP. I'm on the road for two weeks, and have with me a "FLiP Kit" (along with several PABs and assorted parts) so that I can do my job. And play in the evenings. At the moment I am experimenting with BLE and the Propeller using an HM-10 module.
I would suggest statements like this show youR keen business sense. </sarc>
This isn't how Parallax operates. They pay their employees and contractors.
Again, 'What actually is it that you want to do?'
'What actually is it that you want to do?'
Have a couple designs stashed away. I design. I don't implement.
So I just putter in the meantime.
Jon
'Do you work for free?'
Yes and no. My bread and butter is in another field. Which reminds me I need to deal with something tomorrow. Thanks!
This is a hobby and relaxation thing for me.
Anyhow.
Can the SX be programmed without a hardware programmer?
'They did that -- it's called the Propeller'
Okay. I'll accept that.
There are a number of Arduino kits with parts and manuals that may be of interest to you but you can also find websites using the Arduino all over the internet.
The Arduino uses an ATMEL 8-bit AVR microcontroller which internally is quite different that the 32-bit Propeller but both have C compilers.
The Arduino libraries are different than the SimpleIDE libraries but both have webpages that fully document them.
I don't know what your background is or what programming languages you have or have not learned, but Propeller C may be a good place to start or play with an Arduino and then you can easily move to Propeller C.
Falling back to x86 Qbasic and assembler. Little bit of Python.
Going to refresh on digital electronics.
Sort of the building blocks of micro's.
Stamp 1 is just fine for puttering.
Assembly/machine language is certainly direct.
But simplicity? No. It's the inverse, complexity.
Look at the instruction set for the Propeller (or any CISC processor) and compare it to the number of keywords in C (for, while, case, etc.)
The purpose of a compiler/interpreter is to try to generate the appropriate machine instructions for a given statement. Depending on the statement, one line of C code could result in 10 or more machine instructions).
Do you want to, in effect, work with 10x more code?
The compiler takes care of memory assignments, temporary variables and pointers, and can (usually) point out issues in your code such as assigning a 32-bit value to an 8-bit value without casting it.
The assembler can't (at least I haven't worked with one that could).
Processor status flags (result zero, result carry, etc.) are a major stumbling point for learning assembly language.
My advice is that, unless you need speed, stick with a variation of Basic.
If you really need speed, then use a Propeller.
I don't use the Stamps. But on the Propeller I use Spin whenever possible, and PASM (Assembly) when needed for speed.
Parallax needs to invest its limited funds where it will do the most good.
Walter
Jon
'youR keen business sense'
Don't lose any sleep over my financial security.
Walter
All good stuff in your post.
Both the assembler tips and Propellor tips.
Thanks!
You could write a simple blink LED program with it that looks almost the same as a BS1 PBasic program:
100 outa[ 5 ] = 1
110 pause 250
120 outa[ 5 ] = 0
130 pause 250
140 goto 100
Thank you Mike
Propeller Spin C and Assembler are good enough.
There's enough to do with those.